St. Lawrence University upheld its strong standing among the nation's top liberal arts colleges according to the U.S. News and World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” rankings, released on Monday, Sept. 14.
In the 2021 edition, St. Lawrence ranks 54 among the more than 200 liberal arts colleges ranked in the publication, and is also listed as a “best value” school. U.S. News also recognized the University for having the Most Students Studying Abroad and for being an A+ School for B students.
The report builds upon a long list of recent national recognitions for St. Lawrence from The Princeton Review, Fiske, and Kiplinger, among others.
U.S. News categorizes national liberal arts colleges as institutions that focus almost exclusively on undergraduate education and award at least 50 percent of their degrees in the arts and sciences, such as languages, literature, biology and life sciences, philosophy, and psychology. Fewer than half of the nation’s higher educational institutions are ranked in any category by the publication.
This 36th edition of Best Colleges evaluates more than 1,400 colleges and universities on 17 indicators of academic quality. The data used in the 2021 rankings pertain to student and faculty cohorts that predate the pandemic.
This year's edition includes several updates to the Best Colleges methodology that address important issues directly impacting students and their families. These new measures look at timely topics such as student debt, social mobility, and test-blind admissions policies. In addition, the college guide regularly places the greatest emphasis on retaining and graduating students as well as how well schools graduate students who received federal Pell Grants. Faculty resources, assessments by peer institutions and high school guidance counselors, financial resources, student excellence, and alumni giving round out the ranking categories.
In August, The Princeton Review applauded St. Lawrence University for its outstanding academic and co-curricular offerings and the supportive faculty and staff who make it all possible in its most recent publication, Best 386 Colleges: 2021 Edition.
The popular college guide described St. Lawrence as an institution where “the ‘alumni network is super active,’ students have ‘lots of opportunities for hands-on research’ and nearly two-thirds of SLU undergrads study abroad.”
The University received several rankings in the latest edition, including Best Science Lab Facilities (#14), Most Active Student Government (#14), Most Popular Study Abroad Program (#17), Best Career Services (#18); and Best-Run Colleges (#18).
In the last year, St. Lawrence was also included in several of The Princeton Review’s other popular publications, including Best Value Colleges, in which St. Lawrence’s alumni network has been ranked among the best in the nation for the last several years, most recently earning the No. 4 spot.
